The lawyer Kinsight called him Master Bolland, and often commented to him in a whisper upon the proceedings of the party they accompanied. Bolland rarely made any verbal reply, but he looked volumes; and the wink of his black eye was made, by its different characters, to express almost as many things as Lord Burleigh's shake of the head.
The greater part of the body had come thither in procession from the neighbouring county town. Some had joined it on the way, and some had been found already waiting on the heath; but as soon as the whole party was assembled by the side of the beech trees, a perquisition was commenced in order to discover any ground which might seem to have been recently moved; and, ere any very long search had been made, a part of the thin green turf showed, amidst the rank blades of grass which covered the ground beneath the trees, a quantity of scattered mould, clearly indicating the spot they sought.
As soon as this discovery was made, a new difficulty presented itself. It was found that, with a degree of foresight common to county magistrates in those days, the worthy and worshipful knights who came to exhume the body reported to be interred there, had forgotten to order any spades, shovels, or pickaxes to be brought with them; and there they were, in the midst of a wide moor, where no implement of the kind was to be found within a mile or two. On the first mention of this want, one of the more active of the lads who had accompanied the party, set off as hard as his legs could carry him in the direction of the little town of Moorhurst; but as that town was at several miles distance, some of the other person present suggested that it would be better to send up to the farm which had lately been taken by Farmer Gray, just upon the edge of the moor; and while this suggestion was actually being followed, a discussion naturally arose in regard to Farmer Gray, his character, habits, appearance, station, fortune, and farm.
"Ay, he has got a bad bargain of it," said a sturdy farmer in a white smock frock, which concealed the greater part of a strong short-backed pony that he bestrode; "ay, he has got a bad bargain of it; and if he do not mind what he's about, he'll do for himself. I might have had the farm for an old song if I had liked, but I'd have nothing to do with such poor swampy stuff. Why, the place has been out of lease for two years!"
"He'll do very well," grunted another of the same class. "I'm sorry I did not take the place myself. He'll do very well; he comes from Lincolnshire, and knows that sort of land. At least, I saw 'Franklin Gray, Squash-lane, Lincolnshire,' upon one of his carts. He'll do very well. He has the finest horses in the country, too."
"I wonder you call those fine horses, Master Brown," said a respectable labourer, who overheard the conversation; "they are no more fitted for hard work than my sick wife Jane; and as for the matter of that, Farmer Gray will never be much liked hereabouts, for he's brought all his own labourers with him, and that's a hard case upon the people of the place. They say he has been a soldier, too; and I'm sure he don't look like a farmer, or anything half as honest. Why, he goes about in a laced jacket, like a gentleman; and I never saw him at market, not I."
"I'll tell you what," cried a sturdy drover who had joined the group, "he's as good a judge of cattle, for all that, as any man in this country. He knows a beast when he sees it, doesn't he! Why, he bought half a score of me the other day, and paid me down, drink-money and all, without a word."
Such were the comments that took place upon Franklin Gray, in one of the groups into which the party had divided itself. Something similar, with a very slight variation from the different class and character of the speakers, was taking place amongst the rest; and all the little investigating spirit which is excited by the arrival of a stranger in a country place, especially if that stranger be somewhat reserved in his habits, was exercising itself in regard to Franklin Gray, amongst the whole of the assembly on the moor.
Lawyer Kinsight ventured to hint that he suspected Farmer Gray had been a bankrupt in Lincolnshire before he came into their county; but this was instantly contradicted by several others who had had dealings with him, and who represented him as possessing all those excellent qualities which gold invariably bestows upon its owner. Two or three of the young men talked of Farmer Gray's beautiful wife, but declared she was as coy and backward as if she had been old and ugly. Some had only caught a sight of her; some had heard her speak; and some had never even seen her, but were in raptures with her beauty on the mere report of others. What between the rumours of the wife's beauty, the husband's wealth, and the report of his wearing a laced jacket like a gentleman, Sir Matthew Scrope and Sir Thomas Waller found the two organs of curiosity and reverence in their respective brains considerably excited regarding Franklin Gray, and they entered into slow and solemn discussion as to whether, under existing circumstances, they should or should not pay him a formal visit.
At the end of about half an hour, however, some one was seen coming slowly across the moor on horseback, accompanied by two or three others; and in due time appeared the person who had been sent for the spades and shovels, accompanied by Franklin Gray himself, with two or three men furnished with implements for digging. Gray was mounted on a fine powerful horse, full of fire and activity, which he sat in a very different manner from that in which the personages around him bestrode their beasts; and there was something in his whole appearance and demeanour which made the greater part of the men assembled take off their hats as he rode up.